[Radix] Poverty is a Vulnerability Multiplier

[James Lewis]

"Haiti: a long descent to hell" by John Henley (The Guardian G2 15th 
January though the Guardian internet version says 14th) gives 
something of Haiti's history and some reasons, including that of 
corruption, for its endemic poverty. Referring to an Alex von 
Tunzelmann, "a historian and writer currently working on a book about 
the country and its near neighbours, the Dominican Republic and 
Cuba", and Steven Keppel of The Economist Intelligence Unit, Henley 
gives the date of Haiti's independance as 1804, from which date 
"enormous reparations" in gold, that Haiti could not afford, were 
paid to France until 1830, when they were more than halved but 
continued until 1947. 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-history-earthquake-disaster

An accompanying extract from "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail 
or Succeed" (Jared Diamond, 2005 Penguin, not internet accessible), 
seems widely relevant just now - not only to Haiti. The extract 
describes how the division of Hispaniola left Haiti climatically 
disadvantaged. And seismicly ?  "Vulnerability begets vulnerability."

James